Sharing feedback is an essential part of medical education. Feedback can have an enormous impact on how competent and confident trainees feel. Unfortunately, most medical educators are not properly trained to provide effective feedback. This lecture will highlight implicit bias and other common failures in physician written performance reviews. Implicit bias can corrupt resident performance evaluations. Meta-analysis of resident evaluations confirms females and minorities are more commonly described subjectively and word-choices are concerning for systemic bias and pervasive societal ideals. Performance reviews tainted by bias and microaggressions can have long-lasting effects on an individual’s career and devastating repercussions in vulnerable populations. Invest in giving objective feedback and help improve equality and diversity in the field of emergency medicine.
